Heart of Darkness Essays & Research Papers

Best Heart of Darkness Essays

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness does not explicitly deal with a struggle between war and peace: the conflict is a psychological, moral one; however, the text's implications that society is a thin veil over our innate savagery, the darkness at the roots of Western civilization, reveals disturbing truths about the peaceful, orderly lives we take for granted. The key to understanding Conrad's novella lies in ascertaining the metaphorical significance of the "heart of darkness," a search which may...

Everyone in the world has something they aspire to become or dream of having. It is when people desire something beyond normal realms such as infinite wealth that their minds push them to the limits and make them commit savage deeds in order to achieve these dark desires. The theme ‘Consequences of human desire’ is expressed through the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad’s characterization of Kurtz and especially that characters actions and the effect of their desires. In addition,...

The Visions of Light Vs Darkness
When Joseph Conrad composed Heart of Darkness he created a literary masterpiece which embodied the essence of light contrasting with darkness. Throughout the novel Conrad constantly utilizes the images of light and dark and uses them to mold a vision, which the reader is then able to use to decipher the literal and metaphorical meanings of the novel. As Conrad said, " my task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to...

ENGL-2767
Heart of Darkness
Carley Rodrigues
Heart of Darkness: Metaphor Analysis
Joseph Conrad uses symbolism to enhance the main theme of the novel, Heart of Darkness, by setting certain symbolic elements in opposition to contrasting ones. In order to achieve this, he relies heavily on metaphors. Conrad's theory: when men are taken away from civilization that the true darkness of a man's heart is righteously discovered and the "savage" within takes over, was shown through...

638 Words | 2 Pages

All Heart of Darkness Essays

HEART OF DARKNESS
Conrad’s works, Heart of Darkness in particular, provide a bridge between Victorian values and the ideals of modernism. Like their Victorian predecessors, these novels rely on traditional ideas of heroism, which are nevertheless under constant attack in a changing world and in places far from England. Women occupy traditional roles as arbiters of domesticity and morality, yet they are almost never present in the narrative; instead, the concepts of “home” and “civilization”...

Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
Marlow’s Modest White Lie
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definition of the verb to lie is to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. In the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Marlow lies to Kurtz’s Intended. When asked by Kurtz’s Intended what Kurtz’s last words were, Marlow replies “‘The last word he pronounced was – your name’” (75). Marlow lies to Kurtz’s Intended by telling her that Kurtz’s last name was her...

Chinua Achebe’s critical essay entitled “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” portrays the novel Heart of Darkness as being a racist work. Achebe believes that the novel depicts the Western culture’s stereotype of Africa, and because this is such a well-known piece of literature, one that will be hard to break. People are exposed to this version of Africa instead of the way it really is, giving many the wrong impression about the continent and people as a whole....

The Real Heart Of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is not only the title of Joseph Conrad's novella, it is also a main theme. This is portrayed through different images of darkness, black and evil throughout his story. The setting is often used with images of darkness; even as Marlow tells his tale, it is night. This darkness' is inside many concepts of the novella such as Africa, women, black people, maps, the ivory trade corporation and Kurtz. Through these images on his journey, Marlow has a...

﻿The tale begins with the mention of "one of the dark places of the earth" (Conrad, 6) and ends with "it would have been too dark" (Conrad, 131). It begins at sunset and ends at night. The "heart of darkness" may refer to the heart of "darkest Africa". The heart of darkness takes place along the Congo River. At this time, it was pretty much unmapped territory. Here the white "pilgrims" and colonizers lost themselves in the mythic chaos of the jungle. This was a place where the heart of darkness...

﻿Heart of Darkness Essay
Light and dark imagery is one element most commonly used in literature, and has held specific symbolic meanings for hundreds of years. Simply stated, light generally symbolizes good, while darkness symbolizes the complete opposite, evil. More specifically, Conrad uses detailed imagery of light and dark to show that white men can in fact be more savage than the natives. While the contrast of light and dark, white and black, and good and evil is a common theme in his...

﻿Essay: Why do we still study Heart of Darkness?
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad in 1899. It is still studied today as it is considered an exemplary moral text. It explores complex moral issues which are challenging for contemporary youths and demonstrates the effect that isolation can have on a person. Also, it reveals the nature of colonialism in Africa in the late nineteenth century making it significant from a historical and political perspective. Heart of Darkness...

Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad is a fictional novel with an overflow of symbolism. Throughout the entire novel Conrad uses a plethora of simple colors, objects, and places in order to clarify very complex meanings. By doing this, Conrad is able to lure the reader into a world unlike his or her own: the Congo River, located in central Africa. Although the interpretation of these symbols is so elaborate, the simplicity of each makes it somewhat easy to overlook....

﻿Adwoa Bosompim
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad conveys Marlowe’s tale of Africa. The Captain begins his tale with his acceptance for a job in Africa no one else wants. Even though the captain receives warning of the darkness in Africa, he ignores it and soon leaves for his journey. When he soon comes to Africa he sees the Company’s true colors. The Company first appears to have come to Africa to transform the Africans from the savages to civilized people. The more time Marlowe spends in Africa...

Tough and Tougher
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is by far the most difficult book I have ever read in my schooling career, despite the fact not much reading has occured. Regardless, this book was still a fascinating read, after all the trouble of course.
I will openly admit I did sparknote the hell out of this book, but I will also say that I would read it first then check sparknotes to see if what I was getting out of the book was actually correct. In some parts I was correct but from...

﻿The heart of darkness
The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe has claimed that Heart of Darkness is an “offensive and deplorable book” that “set[s] Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest.” Achebe says that Conrad does not provide enough of an outside frame of reference to enable the novel to be read as ironic or critical of imperialism. Based on the evidence in the...

Marlow's Moral Ambiguity
In the novella, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad expresses the absurdity of European imperialism in Africa as well as the moral dilemma of a man in a godless world. The lack of Christianity or of any morally stable system is evident not only to the reader, but to the characters as well. Marlow's narrative explains man's instinctual desires (id) versus man's mortality (superego). He is disgusted at the brutality of the company and horrified by Kurtz's degeneration,...

L I T CHA R T S
TM
Heart of Darkness
Key Facts
Full Title: Heart of Darkness Genre: Colonial literature; Quest literature Setting: The Narrator tells the story from a ship at the mouth of the Thames River near London, England around 1899. Marlow’s story-within-the-story is set in an unnamed European city (probably Brussels) and in the Belgian Congo in Africa sometime in the early to mid 1890s, during the colonial era. Climax: The confrontation between Marlow and Kurtz in the jungle...

Wilderness in the Heart Of Darkness
The wilderness in the Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is much more than just a backdrop for the action of the story but is directly related to the title of the book. Throughout the story and through Marlow’s eyes, the wilderness is its own character and that character represents the darkness in every man’s heart. Seeing the wilderness entirely through Marlow’s eyes allows for an interesting combination of fascination and horror.
At the beginning of...

Heart of Darkness
Irony of situation plays a major role in the shaping of events in the novel Heart of Darkness. For instance Joseph Conrad does not use light as a symbol for bringing knowledge and truth to a situation; rather he uses light as an indication of a hidden truth. These occurrences include “There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. (Conrad 30)” This shows the feelings that Marlow is...

Darkness
Heart of Darkness contains two layers of narration. The outer narrator is a passenger on the pleasure ship The Nellie, who hears Marlow recount one of his "inconclusive experiences" (21) as a riverboat captain in Africa. This unnamed narrator speaks for not only himself, but also the four other men who listen to Marlow's story. He breaks into Marlow's narrative infrequently; mainly to remark on the audience's reaction to what Marlow is saying. He is omniscient only with respect to...

It has been speculated that Joseph Conrad, author of the novella Heart of Darkness, was a racist. Heart of Darkness takes place in Africa, in the late nineteenth century. The main character is Marlow, a Caucasian man from Belgium who is sent to work for an ivory company in Africa. Conrad depicts Marlow as a moderate man working for this company. The language and tone that Conrad uses to depict the native Africans in Heart of Darkness makes it clear that Joseph Conrad was, in fact, a racist....

Student name: David Mier Zhang
Student ID: ZHMJD13
Every Coin Has Two Sides
The title Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, suggests the endless darkness, however, the foundation of the darkness is light. Also, May Day by F. Scott Fitzgerald, literal meaning of the title is opposite from the meaning of the story. When most people hear the phrase "May Day", the first thought cross mind is the French Word M’aider, which means help, however, during the story, mayday is not the...

Heart of Darkness, a novel written by Joseph Conrad, tells the story of a character named Marlow, who is recalling his journey to Africa down the Congo River to a group of seamen on a boat. The story is being retold by an unknown figure that people refer to as the narrator. Joseph Conrad’s characters are constructed around the ideas that were present in society when the novel was written. Characters such as Kurtz and Marlow are created to be naive and to allows action to be the truest medium to...

Heart of Darkness
By S. Hanford
Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness is much more than simply “the story of a journey up a river.” Although it was first published in 1902, the text contains perennial themes that remain relevant to a 21st Century audience today. Through his writing, Conrad cleverly expresses his views on colonisation and imperialism, explores the depth and concept of the inner journey, and comments on society’s need for some form of restraint. Conrad draws on his own...

ss Stud1. “This too was once one of the dark places of the earth.”
This quote was spoken by Marlow. The quote signifies the beginning of Marlow’s story, and the pretense to his vivid recollection of his journey. Marlow is referring to his current surroundings because he is about to start his lengthy allegory. Basically, Marlow begins by telling the other sailors that every place was at one point unexplored and uninhabited.
2. “We live in the flicker…may it last as long as the old earth...

Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as "the other world," the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality.
--Chinua Achebe
In this quote Chinua Achebe is making his case against Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He is saying that the novel shows Africa and its people as animals and the complete opposite of the white man in Europe. However this is truly...

Kristijan Lovrić
S. Runtić, doc. dr. sc.
Survey of English Literature II
May 15, 2012
The Darkness of Kurtz’s Heart
The main theme of the novel Heart of Darkness is the darkness of the human nature and its destructive influence on human beings. This research paper aims to analyze the character and personal downfall of Kurtz and use him as an example for the darkness of the human nature. It will show how easily a man can experience bad fate; Kurtz was an ambitious man full of hope who came...

Throughout the novel Heart of Darkness Conrad uses the motif of the heart to thoroughly explain how dark people and places really can be. Conrad uses the heart as a symbol for the entire continent of Africa. The heart is also used to show what the heart of mankind truly is. Another use of the heart is as a representation of the inner station, which shows the darkness of exploitations through Kurtz. The different uses of the heart are amplified through such literary devices as irony, imagery, and...

PS: This essay is of very poor quality, please do not trust it. Use it as a guide telling you what you should not do...
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Topic : Heart of Darkness has been called a night journey, a voyage into the subconscious, an initiation. Comment on these definitions.
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad in 1899. The book follows the story of Marlow, a sailor telling his travel into the depth of Belgian Congo through the use of retrospective...

8 November 2013
Close Reading: Heart of Darkness
Imagine being stuck on a steamboat outnumbered by the other, who happen to be starving, unable to advance through the unnerving scream filled fog. This enigmatic experience is only one of many told by Marlow in the story of his journey up the Congo. Marlow is attentive to the restraint shown by the black slaves on his boat in fighting off the hunger that weakens them. The colleagues of Marlow are more concerned with the anonymous screams of...

To what extent does cultural context influence the nature of adaptation from text to big screen?
To an extent, cultural context plays an integral role in the process of adaptation from text to film. It greatly influences our perception of the film, as the audience can relate their surroundings to the movie. In the case of Apocalypse Now, the prominent issue was the cold war. However, besides cultural context, other factors also influence the nature of adaptation. It’s...

Elvira Correa Lazaro
March 1, 2013
AP Lit/ Mr.Tow
Heart of Darkness: Take Home Essay
2012 Prompt
In Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the geographical surrounding shape the psychological and moral traits in Kurtz, one of the characters of the novel. Especially because it shows the savagery, and lawless environment of the uncivilized lands, which allows Kurtz to almost forget all the European ways, and it also illuminates the work as a whole by bringing the question of what would...

STUDY GUIDE
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Each detail to which your attention is drawn by the Study Guide is part of the puzzle of Heart of Darkness. It is important to notice the details, to ponder them, to see how patterns repeat themselves, and to see how the pieces fit together. Marlow's journey and your reading about the journey require constant alertness, discipline, patience, and a willingness to look for what is not immediately apparent.
Section 1
A. The Thames Setting...

Staci Watson
Mills
AP English 6th
April 17, 2012
Heart of Darkness vs. Apocalypse Now
Both the novel "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad and the movie "Apocalypse Now" are about one man's journey through Africa and Vietnam. A comparison and contrast can be made between the two. Both have the same themes but entirely different settings. Heart of Darkness takes place on the Congo River in the Heart of Africa while Apocalypse Now is set in Vietnam. The stock characters in both have the same...

1. Some critics believe that in Heart of Darkness Conrad illustrates how ‘’the darkness of the landscape can lead to the darkness of the social corruption.” This statement means that if the environment is dark, then the people in that environment will match the surrounding feeling, which is dark and depressing. For example, if it is a gloomy rainy day, most people feel tired and not as happy. If it is a bright sunny day, the most people feel motivated to get things done and joyful. Yes, this...

David Denby's "Jungle Fever" was written as a dispute to Chinua Achebe's argument against the significance of Heart of Darkness. Achebe argued that Heart of Darkness supports the dehumanization of Africans which has helped fuel the Western discrimination against Africans. Denby creates an argument of how has significant importance to literature. Denby argues his point through his journey in a college classroom. Denby observes a Literature Humanities class at Columbia College that is reading...

﻿Diana Duţă
Professor Dr. Carmen-Adina Ciugureanu/ Lecturer Dr. Florian Andrei Vlad
Romanian-English, Second Year
13 May 2014
Notes on the title of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
It makes good sense to suggest that a title is conventionally chosen to represent the main idea of a novella, to correlate with a theme or motif. Heart of Darkness is no exception. Published in 1902, the novella illustrates the mentality and the culture of the white people at that time. They were confident in...

The immortality and blindness to a dark continent
Joseph Conrad’s s novel “Heart of Darkness” portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman. Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as “so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness”, (Conrad 2180) as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life. Conrad lived through a time when European colonies were scattered all over the world. This...

﻿The complexity of narration in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness functions to serve Marlow’s assertion that, "No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life- sensation of any given epoch of one's existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone ..." ( ). The varying levels of diegesis in Heart of Darkness move the reader further and further outward from the essence of the story, from the darkness that...

Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness : Negotiating Space for the Women
ASIT K. BISWAS
My purpose in this article is to evaluate the roles played by the women characters in Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, and to show, contrary to the general view, that the women in the novel may and do serve to give more meaning to the text than they are supposed to do. I have taken into the purview of my critcal analysis only three of the women-Marlow’s old aunt,...

Juxtaposition is one of the many literary element used in emphasis of a concept or an idea. In the novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad juxtaposes the motifs of light and dark to emphasize the wickedness present throughout the book. Through juxtaposition, Conrad not only emphasizes the darkness in Africa but also intensifies the dark hearts of the Europeans.
The major darkness in the novel is the land of Africa itself. When Marlow first makes his way upstream with his crew, he describes...

Darkness
Every man and woman has a dark side to them. The characters in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are no different. In this novella, a man named Marlow travels into Africa because he wants to fill the “blank spaces’” on the map, but what he encounters there is not at all what he expected or hoped for (Conrad 373). He finds that the colonists who came before him have turned into violent and covetous people. They have lost sight of who they really are and have forgotten the reason they...

The Multiple Meanings of Darkness depicted in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, originally published in 1899, is centered around an anonymous narrator retelling the story of a man named Marlow’s journey as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Africa. Marlow, through his aunt, lands a job as a pilot on a steamboat under the control of a Belgian business referred to as the Company. On this voyage Marlow is on a mission to meet Kurtz, a man...

The central aim in which the shipmates in Heart of Darkness are pursuing is the expansion of their home countries’ empires. Yet, many people are hurt in this enterprise, and it’s not only the colonized that are impacted negatively by this Imperialist project. Another dominant theme in this book involves notions of civilization. The author Joseph Conrad was trying to convey messages through out the book about Imperialism and civilized society’s.
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad was trying to...

Heart of Darkness, a novella written by Joseph Conrad, is a sort of monologue by a sailor named Marlow. Marlow’s journey through the Congo left him in a very emotionally shaken state, as he witnessed multiple deaths, corpses, diseases, and other such calamities. But throughout all of this, Marlow fixates on the most elusive character, a European worshipped by the natives by the name of Kurtz. Kurtz is portrayed as a very talented man; owing his artistic, musical, and literary skills to a high...

Chinua Achebe, a well-known writer, once gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, entitled "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Throughout his essay, Achebe notes how Conrad used Africa as a background only, and how he "set Africa up as a foil to Europe,"(Achebe, p.251) while he also "projects the image of Africa as 'the other world,' the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization."(Achebe, p.252) By his own...

The Role of Women in Heart of Darkness
These days, women are as successful and as career-oriented as men. This fact is punctuated by the fact that women are now experiencing stress and disease that used to be the constant companions of men in the workforce. Such is the price of equality and career mobility! However, in the early 1900s, females were still held to be less viable than men and in stories were often portrayed as subservient and weak and thus cast in inferior roles to men. At...

Imperialism and its oppressive processes have affected societies as well as individual lives for centuries. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, oppression through imperialism demonstrates how a certain civilization, the Congolese, is affected negatively by imperialism. By focusing on Africa, it allows for a graphic recount of the many years spent reigned by foreign oppressors and tyrannies. In Heart of Darkness, the Congo is oppressed by the imperialists economically and geographically. As...

Imperialism within the Heart of Darkness
A phenomenon, The Heart of Darkness, is a classic novel by Joseph Conrad, who reward individuals with their dark nature. The darkness that the characters face within themselves is the anchor towards the main theme of imperialism. Native Africans, around the early 1900s, were victims of imperialism in the novel. The Europeans saw themselves as prodigies and felt everyone redundant wanted to be like them for they perceived themselves as extraordinary. The...

The Russian sailor in Conrad's Heart of Darkness is not the hero of the novella, but Marlow's identification of him as a harlequin who presents an "unsolvable problem" leaves readers similarly wondering what to make of the enigmatic character. He seems to reside like the "meaning" of one of Marlow's tales, "not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze."2 Marlow's shifting responses to the Russian sailor and his own psychological...

Book Review: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Title: Heart of Darkness
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publishing: Green Integer
Year: October 1, 2003 (original 1890)
Pages: Paperback, 200 pages
ISBN: 1892295490 (ISBN13: 9781892295491)
Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' is one of the most well-known works among scholars of classical and post-colonial literature. It is thought provoking and ominous, but is also considered to be one of the most highly stylistic in its class. The novel blends...

Addie Zebrowski
Moral Ambiguity in Heart of Darkness
In _Heart of Darkness_, by Joseph Conrad, the character Marlow, through his actions and experiences, shows himself to be morally ambiguous in that he goes on the European's malevolent expedition to Africa yet he seems to despise the events he sees there and in that he performs both noble and ignoble deeds. These experiences and actions drive Conrad's theme of European influence and colonialism corrupting, in this case, Africa. Marlow is a...

Novels do not have to be long to have credible literary merit. Such is the case with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness is quite short, yet superior and intriguing, due to the content of the novel.
Heart of Darkness is intriguing, like Hamlet or like a Kafka novel, in that readers taken by power of the story never feel quite satisfied with their attempts to intellectualize the experience (Adelman 8).
Heart of Darkness was written during the time of British imperialism and...

oseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a novel about European imperialism and its far-reaching aims, methods, and effects. The author, Conrad, presents his own personal opinions through his central character, Marlow, who learns a great deal about imperialism while on a journey to the African Congo, and through his search for the infamous Kurtz throughout the novel. Although Heart of Darkness seems to be an anti-imperialistic work, this is not entirely true. Rather, Conrad criticizes the exaggerated...

Santiago Páez
Susan Galle
English A1
14/12/2010
Corruption in Imperialism in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
Both the novel "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad and the movie "Apocalypse Now" are about one man's journey through the dark, cruel wilderness of Africa and Vietnam. Marlow's mission is to rescue Kurtz from up the Congo at the inner station, while Willard's is to terminate Kurtz's command up the Nung River, by any means necessary. Much parallelism can be found between the...

Many atrocities and monstrosities occur in this world on a daily basis. Many of these acts go unnoticed or unreported to the rest of the world. One such instance that went unreported to the rest of the world for a very long time is the exploitation and imperialism of the Congo in Africa. Many European rulers exclaimed at the opportunity to grab a portion of the riches made by exploiting the resources of the Congo. Along with this, many innocent civilians were killed and taken advantage of....

﻿Bolanos 1
Brigitte Bolanos
Eng 110
Johanna Scheffer
October 15, 2014
Post-colonialism Criticism
Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness is about the character Marlow venturing off to Africa to meet the famous Kurtz that everybody in Europe praises. In the novella, a shadowy second figure is narrating Marlow’s telling of his life-changing journey in meeting Kurtz to a crew of men. In his journey Marlow encounters the demand for ivory, colonial dehumanization and overall the effects of imperialism....

The infinite battle between good and evil can destroy, refine, or rebuild the human soul by means of choice. However, good is stronger than evil and someday, the power of good will dominate. In the novel Heart of Darkness, Conrad illustrates pure evil and its capability to consume one’s soul. The title Heart of Darkness symbolizes the true evil in man, the improper use of knowledge and the downfall of civilization.
“I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of...

﻿
Heart of Darkness Essay 1
Each person on the planet can be good or evil. It’s human nature. In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the author shows how corruptible people are. Even the title symbolizes man’s capacity for evil. Throughout this novel, the characters show both good and evil.
The first character to show these capacities is Marlow, the narrator. He shows his good side when he feels compassion for a chain gang of Africans. “A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head....

﻿Jasmine Mitchell
Kaminsky/ 1B
AP Literature
November 3, 2013
Active Reading Guide
1. After leaving the Outer Station, Marlow leaves “with a caravan of sixty men, for a two-hundred-mile tramp” (23). He then “hobbled into Central Station” after fifteen days of hiking (25). At Central Station, Marlow discovers that he will be stuck there for a long while because the manager had sunk the steamboat (25). It was also at Central Station that Marlow first learned there was “a very important...

Submitting to Symbolism
Every great author posses the ability to create a novel deeply woven in symbolism and subliminal messages. Underneath the literal journey encountered in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness lies a tale saturated with subtle, yet, significant imagery that brings forth the true meaning of the novella. Throughout Heart of Darkness Conrad uses a plethora of simple colors, objects, and places to convey multifaceted images and ideas. His fine execution of the tools of the...

The Road to Self Discovery
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is a short novel about Marlow, a pensive sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet an idealist named Kurtz. Marlow works as a riverboat captain with a Belgian company organized to trade in the Congo. Throughout his journey, Marlow encounters extensive forms of brutality, thus taking him on another journey: one of self discovery and a newfound attitude towards life through encountering “the heart of darkness”.
The...

RESPONSE PAPER ON THE HEART OF DARKNESS
I want to do my short paper on The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and compare this story with the spirit of industrialization. I was going to support this idea based on nature of the soul and relate that to Kurtz by showing that nature of the soul is that involving irrational and rational components , irrational being needs and, instincts or wants but can be controlled by reason. The other part is rational, or cognitive, to think or remember. In...

THEMES IN HEART OF DARKNESS
1. GOOD VS EVIL
Much of Heart of Darkness is concerned with Marlow’s struggle to maintain his sense of morality as power conspiracies rage all around him and the mysterious figure of Kurtz piques his curiosity. Marlow’s desire to do good grows increasingly futile as he is plunged into a world where no absolute goodness exists and the best he can do is choose between a selection of nightmares. Eventually, we see that the characters become unable to distinguish...

Final Paper
Realization of the inner evil in the Heart of Darkness.
Evil is an inherent part of all humans. This is clearly illustrated in the novella Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. As Marlow takes on the journey to find Kurtz, he really is taking a journey to find himself. Much to his dismay he realizes that the same evil Kurtz possesses, he possesses as well. Conrad uses this realization to show the reader that under the right circumstances, evil can overtake anyone’s...

"There is...a machine. It evolved itself...and behold!--it knits....It knits us in and it knits us out. It has knitted time, space, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illusions--and nothing matters.
three evident themes include death, corruption, and despair. During Marlow's journey into the "heart of darkness," death, corruption, and despair became the manifest themes of the novel. First of all, Marlow came face to face with death several times throughout his voyage. Marlow finds out...

2013 Apocalypse Now & Heart of Darkness Appropriation Essay
Marlow and Willard both journey into the “interior.” What they find and what they experience reflects the concerns of their respective composers.
Compare how Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola use Marlow and Willard to voice their concerns and critique their respective contexts.
In your response, ensure that you refer to specific scenes from both texts and consider the techniques used. Include accurate and appropriate...

Marlow’s contemplation during his journey through the Congo
In one of his novels, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad depicts the tale of a man who reflects upon the meaning of life as well as all of its intricasies and implications. Indeed, Marlow, the main character of this story, questions several existential topics and explores his own personal curiosity about the solidarity and darkness of the jungle he finds himself in. At one point in the storyline, Marlow and his crew depart...

On the surface Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a story of adventure, suspense, and mystery, but beneath its literal exterior lays a philosophical undercurrent: the quest towards self-actualization. The novel begins on the Thames River in London where five seamen sit "with silence onboard the yacht" watching the sun set, feeling "meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring." The adventure is prefaced and foreshadowed by the images created by in the opening pages. The narrator first...

With Kurtz’ dying words being “The horror! The horror!” the readers are left with the question as to what he meant by that statement. And as one of those readers, I could only come to the conclusion that he was referring to the horror being a form of emptiness, a profound nothingness that lies at the heart of everything.
At the beginning of the novel, Kurtz’s character has been a great mystery to Marlow and everyone else. And as the story progresses, we learn that his immersion in the...

An Analysis of "Heart of Darkness"
Joseph Conrad, in his long-short story, "Heart of Darkness," tells the tale
of two mens' realization of the hidden, dark, evil side of themselves. Marlow,
the "second" narrator of the framed narrative, embarked upon a spiritual
adventure on which he witnessed firsthand the wicked potential in everyone. On
his journey into the dark, forbidden Congo, the "heart of darkness," so to speak,
Marlow encountered Kurtz, a "remarkable man" and "universal...

In Conrad’s 1902 novella Heart of Darkness, there are several ways of interpreting Marlow’s journey down the Congo River. Marlow’s journey is symbolic and metaphoric, and hence can be interpreted psychoanalytically, mythically and historically. A psychoanalytical reading involves examining Marlow’s journey in the light of Freud’s and Nietzsche’s understanding of humanity’s inner psyche. A mythical understanding reverberates on the plot, such that Marlow engages on a heroic quest to find his holy...

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness explores many themes throughout the book which can be related to one another such as “Identity” and “Darkness” Joseph Conrad depicts these themes through the use of symbolism and how the narrator thinks and speaks.
Joseph Conrad uses a diverse range of symbolism throughout the novel to communicate a deeper message within, it allows readers to think more in depth and make a connection to its meaning. It could also the message easier to...

In the novel Heart of Darkness the focus is mainly about the situation of imperialism in that time period. It describes the hypocrisy of imperialism, the madness as a result of imperialism, and the absurdity of evil. In reality the book is about much more than that. Marlow is the narrator and throughout the novel his visions and thoughts about himself change greatly as he endures the journey of self-discovery.
In the beginning Marlow feels lost in his life; the main focus in life to him was...

Marlow’s journey in Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, traverses not only the volatile waters spanning the Congo, but also ventures in to his unconscious self. It is a voyage into the depths of the human heart and mind, leading to enlightenment revealing of the crevices of the hell existing within each and every one of us. Although through Marlow, Conrad depicts a journey into the Congo, his use of symbolic language evokes that it is something much more profound, a journey in to the self....

Keyla Alvarez
Mrs. Sandy B. Hunter
English
5 September 2012
The Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness has foreshadowing that adds a lot of suspense throughout the book. Conrad used foreshadowing through minor details that are not clearly stated and are to be interpreted as the book continues.
The setting of the book--on a small sailing craft on a river as night falls--and Marlow's comparison, by implication, of the dark heart of Africa (the Belgian Congo) and the...

1) Trace the key symbols and leitmotifs.
One big symbol that I gathered from this reading was the darkness. Darkness in this novel has a double meaning. Not only are the areas, Europe, Africa and Brussels, dark, but the men in the story are also dark. The inhumane way they treat others, like slaves, leads to the darkness of man. The inability to see another for who they are and not an object leaves a man’s soul full of darkness. Add the fog setting in during certain points in the film, and...

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Society's Ignorance of Racism
Racism is extremely prevalent in current times, yet society tends to turn a blind eye towards it. By ignoring racism, society essentially condones it, and teaches future generations to do the same. Authors often choose to incorporate the belittlement of their characters based on ethnicity to address social problems. Joseph Conrad utilizes racism in his literary works to bring to light this widespread issue. In his novel, The Heart of Darkness, Conrad uses...

Write a critique of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, based on your reading about post-colonialism and discussing Conrad's view of African culture as "other." What would someone from Africa think about this work?
"Heart of Darkness" starts out in London and also ends there as well. Most of the story takes place in the Congo which is now known as the Republic of the Congo. Heart of Darkness was essentially a transitional novel between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the...

Heart of Darkness: Cruelty
David Yu
In Joseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness the Europeans are cut off
from civilization, overtaken by greed, exploitation, and material interests
from his own kind. Conrad develops themes of personal power, individual
responsibility, and social justice. His book has all the trappings of the
conventional adventure tale - mystery, exotic setting, escape, suspense,
unexpected attack. The book is a record of things seen and done by Conrad
while in the Belgian...

In Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad often uses vague,"muted"
descriptions, leaving a melange of possible meanings in the reader's lap.
One exception to this trend is Conrad's symbolic use of ivory. Within the
frame of the story, his references to ivory can obviously be seen as a
representation of the white man's greed. Towards the end of the book ivory
comes to symbolize the oozing evil that drips from the heart of darkness.
It isn't long before Conrad...

Post-Colonial Theory and Heart of Darkness
"Heart of Darkness" begins and ends in London; on the Nellie on the Thames. The most part, however, takes place in the Congo (now known as the Republic of the Congo). The Kongo, as it was originally known, was inhabited first by pygmy tribes and migratory 'Bantus' and was 'discovered' by the Portuguese in the 14th Century. The Portuguese brought with them Catholocism; European missionaries. The Congo was ruled by King Alfonso I from 1506 -...

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Joseph Conrad, though incredibly esteemed, is often found to be the victim of scathing, literary, critiques. Many of the literary criticisms aimed at Conrad’s novels openly accuse him of being a multitude of quite nasty things—one of which being antifeminist. Having only read Heart of Darkness, I cannot vouch for all of his other works, but I will admit that on an aesthetic level the story (particularly the main character Marlow) seems to view women with an air of disdain. However, that is...

oseph Conrad, in his long-short story, Â³Heart of Darkness,Â² tells the tale of two mensÂ¹ realization of the hidden, dark, evil side of themselves. Marlow, the Â³secondÂ² narrator of the framed narrative, embarked upon a spiritual adventure on which he witnessed firsthand the wicked potential in everyone. On his journey into the dark, forbidden Congo, the Â³heart of darkness,Â² so to s...
Heart of Darkness Contrasting marlow and kurtz and the theme of evil in "heart of darkness"...

Before being published in the present form of the novel, Heart of Darkness was printed in a serial form in 1899 and then part of a volume entitled Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories in 1902. Based on Conrad’s own personal experiences after the African country of the Congo and the famous Congo River flowing through this country the story assumed the present novel. It was in this year 1890 that Conrad had performed his sailing trip upon the river Congo as a captain or skipper of a Belgian...

Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, is a work of complexity. “His stories often represent and suggest more than they say” (Skinner). Conrad gives the novel a perplex side through his tactfully written words. This unique language that Conrad uses gives a sense of duality to many phrases in the novel. The double meanings of much of the language that Conrad uses contribute to a reoccurring aspect of the novel, which is that often times there is far more substance to something than appears on...

In the heart of Darkness, where all things are essentially dark, such as the brutality of Imperialism, there lies one man who loses his conscious. He forgets all morals, he cannot see the line between right or wrong.
In the novella, one finds Kurtz mysterious at first. With Marlow narrating his journey through the Congo just to find Kurtz, he eventually understands that Kurtz has gone mad. The Victorian lifestyle in which Kurtz is from is one of a moralistic living, everything must be proper,...

Heart of Darkness Study Questions
Chapter 1
1. The setting of the story begins on the Nellie, a ship. The turn of the tide is significant because it gives the men on board extra time to talk, and Marlow begins telling his story. In addition, symbolically, the turning of the tide conveys a change, and perhaps, foreshadowing of the story. The author spends a lot of time dealing with light because it is the main symbol in the novella. Light and darkness are universal symbols that represent good...

At the start of the novel, Marlow, along with the four other men, watch the Director of Companies. Marlow makes this note about him while the Director is looking seaward: “It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom” (1). One would think that the Director’s work would be in the future, out before him and waiting to be taken care of. However, Marlow’s remark that the Director’s work is actually behind him is quite the...

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Heart of Darkness – different readings
IN the Novel Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, Marlow’s Journey down the Congo River can be construed to be metaphoric of many different readings including a psychoanalytical interpretation, a mythical interpretation or a Historical reading. The psychoanalytical approach sees Marlow’s Journey to be a journey into the human psyche and inner consciousness as he goes further down the river. In creating this sense, Conrad has used religious...

﻿Austin March
English 12 Honors
Mrs. Freeze
9 September 2014
Racism within Heart of Darkness
What is racism? How can someone be classified as a racist? According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, racism is classified as the poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race, or the belief that some races of people are better than others. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has been considered a major turning point for authors and other works because his style of writing was...

Jacob Lachini
Ms. Batten
ENG 4U1-03
Monday, October 29th, 2012.
Literary Criticisms in Relation to Heart of Darkness
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of ''meanings,” Susan Sontag. It is a persons interpretation of any form of literary work that defines itself, what the author intends a reader to discover may be...

The Narrative Structure of Heart of Darkness
Peter Brooks's "An Unreadable Report: Conrad's Heart of Darkness"
discusses the narrative style of the book. And may I take the time here to say, Wow!, I have never thought about this before and it is warping my mind.
HoD not only tells a story; it explores why the story should be told in this manner as well as the limitations of telling the story in this manner.
Conrad uses the "organizing features of traditional narrative" (Which are?...

﻿Heart of Darkness: Notes
Women:
Marlow and Kurtz believe women symbolize decency and purity
-Women represent goodness: men need to see this purity to balance with the evil they have seen
Marlow believes women are the keepers of illusions (naïve); they live in a dream world
-these illusions are needed for the white men to justify colonialism
-"It's queer how out of touch with truth women are! They live in a world of their own and there had never been anything like it and never can be. Some...

Race and Women within Heart of Darkness
The book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is told by a man named Marlow, about his trip down the Congo River in Africa, to the people on his ship as he cruises down the Thames. Marlow tells about his travels to Africa for a job offer to be a riverboat captain; the offer is to travel into the center of Africa to search for ivory for a European trading company. Along his first stretch of journey Marlow sees a French boat firing guns senselessly into...

To Live or to Die
As stated by Professor Rosenthal, characters are not people, and they are apart of an author’s bag of tricks to make a point. I believe the author of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, used that character Kurtz as a symbol to represent savagery. Savagery can be defined as an uncontrolled, fierce and hostile individual. I believe there is a certain degree of darkness/savagery that lies within every being, but it does not always emerge, and if so can prevail to the point of...